AI for Industrial Service Leaders Improving Diagnostics and Field Efficiency - with Scot Burdette of ABB

**Daniel Faggella** (0:12)
Welcome, everyone, to the Emerge AI in Business Podcast. Today's guest is Scot Burdette, Global Division CIO at ADB. Scot joins us on today's episode to examine how industrial service organizations are managing compounding pressure from retiring expertise and increasingly complex equipment. He discusses how remote diagnostics and predictive insights are shifting where service expertise gets applied and what leadership prioritize first when building a data-driven service strategy. Today's episode is sponsored by Aquant. Just a quick note for our audience that the views and opinions expressed by Scot Burdette on today's program are his own and do not reflect that of ABB or its leadership. Getting in front of enterprise AI buyers is not about impressions, it's about trust. At Emerj, we help AI vendors engage with decision-makers through research-driven content and conversations that actually matter in the buying process. To learn the exact strategies we are using to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers, visit emerj.com/ad1. That's emerj.com/ad1.
Now the conversation with Scot.
Welcome to the Emerge AI in Business Podcast.

**Scot Burdette** (1:41)
Hello, Yolandi. Thank you so much for having me.

**Daniel Faggella** (1:44)
Happy to pick your brain today. I think a lot about what's happening in the industrial service organization right now is figuring out that there's no single problem, right? Several problems are landing at the same time. Equipment is getting more complex. We see people that have spent decades understanding the current equipment retiring and all of these things probably happening faster than anyone anticipated. And I'm wondering, with the pressure that is compounding, more escalations, more cost, more exposure on uptime, what pressures are shaping the reality of industrial service today?

**Scot Burdette** (2:16)
And I think you mentioned several of them, and you're absolutely right. There are talent shortages.
We have folks that have decades and decades of experience and expertise, and they're retiring and walking out the door. And so it's a big effort and a focus for us to bring in new engineers, partner them with these experts so we could do knowledge transfer, knowledge share. And you mentioned another topic as well, and that is equipment complexity. Industrial assets are, they're not getting more simple, they're getting more complex. And especially with what we do in measurement analytics, there are sensors, there's software, there's advanced diagnostics that are great, but they're also very complicated. And so not only do you have this gap in experience and expertise, but you also now are having to learn new technology and apply that technology as well. Those are two of the topics that then concern us a bit, and we've been addressing it for quite some time with the idea that it would not stop us from serving the customers the way that we need to. And so we have a lot of effort in these two areas to make sure that we can continue to deliver the quality and the support needed by our customers.

**Daniel Faggella** (3:23)
That's super important. If we're thinking about knowledge that's walking out the door, is there a way to measure how much has already been lost? Or is it one of those things that we'll only notice once it's gone?

**Scot Burdette** (3:35)
I think you have to notice it before they leave. I think that's the problem. If you don't notice it and you have a gap after they've gone, then it's hard to fill that gap.
I think the big thing is our employees are very important to us, very important to our teams and the way we work together. I think understanding the plans that folks have as they are nearing the end of their career and make sure that we put in place some mentorship of younger folks side by side with them, we pair them together so they work together, they learn together so that as they begin to start that process of walking out the door and enjoying a well-earned retirement, that we have proper expertise in place. It takes time. I've been talking with some folks that have been working with younger folks working with them and getting this experience for up to two years in advance just because it's that complex.

**Daniel Faggella** (4:28)
With how complex equipment is getting and technicians not just having to figure out the basics anymore, it's getting more and more and more complex. Can a single technician keep up with this? Or are we making it a bigger problem than it's supposed to be?

**Scot Burdette** (4:43)
I think it takes a team. It really does because when you're talking about technology that we have, you're talking about sensors, you're talking about the software, the advanced diagnostics that we provide today and also are continuing to provide in more detailed fashion moving forward. It's becoming more complex and so as a result, I think there are people that specialize in different areas and think that that makes it a little more difficult as well over time.